stack/docs/providers/nvidia.md

summary, read_when, title

summary	read_when	title
Use NVIDIA's OpenAI-compatible API in OpenClaw	You want to use open models in OpenClaw for free You need NVIDIA_API_KEY setup You want to use Nemotron 3 Ultra through NVIDIA	NVIDIA

NVIDIA serves open models for free through an OpenAI-compatible API at https://integrate.api.nvidia.com/v1, authenticated with an API key from build.nvidia.com. OpenClaw defaults the NVIDIA provider to Nemotron 3 Ultra, NVIDIA's 550B total / 55B active reasoning model for long-context agentic work.

Getting started

Create an API key at [build.nvidia.com](https://build.nvidia.com/settings/api-keys). ```bash export NVIDIA_API_KEY="nvapi-..." openclaw onboard --auth-choice nvidia-api-key ``` ```bash openclaw models set nvidia/nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b ```

For non-interactive setup, pass the key directly:

openclaw onboard --auth-choice nvidia-api-key --nvidia-api-key "nvapi-..."

`--nvidia-api-key` lands the key in shell history and `ps` output. Prefer the `NVIDIA_API_KEY` environment variable when possible.

Config example

{
  env: { vars: { NVIDIA_API_KEY: "nvapi-..." } },
  models: {
    providers: {
      nvidia: {
        baseUrl: "https://integrate.api.nvidia.com/v1",
        api: "openai-completions",
      },
    },
  },
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      model: { primary: "nvidia/nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b" },
    },
  },
}

Live model catalog

When an NVIDIA API key is configured, setup and model-selection paths check https://integrate.api.nvidia.com/v1/models for available model IDs, cached for 30 seconds. NVIDIA's public https://assets.ngc.nvidia.com/products/api-catalog/featured-models.json feed provides ranking and token limits, cached for 24 hours. Featured models appear first only while the inference inventory still lists them; other available bundled chat models follow. A fresh inventory can restore a previously hidden model that NVIDIA has republished.

The inventory also contains embeddings and other non-chat endpoints, without capability metadata. OpenClaw therefore offers only exact models with bundled chat metadata or valid featured-model metadata; it does not guess capabilities from model names. Unknown IDs can still be configured explicitly; listing alone does not prove chat compatibility. This is not a complete automatic catalog of every NVIDIA model.

Both public fetches use fixed HTTPS hosts and send no credentials. A failed inventory or featured request marks discovery unavailable and retains the last successful catalog for the same provider configuration and credentials. Failed featured metadata cannot silently remove previously discovered models. A successful empty inventory clears discovered models, even if the featured feed fails. Without NVIDIA auth, browsing uses the bundled catalog without fetching.

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning

nvidia/nemotron-3.5-lightning-30b-a3b is NVIDIA's smaller 30B total / 3B active reasoning model for agentic work. The bundled row records its 1M context and a 16,384-token output budget matching NVIDIA's hosted example. Select it with:

openclaw models set nvidia/nvidia/nemotron-3.5-lightning-30b-a3b

Lightning is selectable when the live inventory lists it even if it is absent from the featured feed. Nemotron 3 Ultra remains the default.

Nemotron 3 Ultra

Nemotron 3 Ultra is the default NVIDIA model in OpenClaw. NVIDIA's build page for nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b lists it as an available free endpoint with a 1M-token context specification.

The bundled Ultra row sends chat_template_kwargs: { enable_thinking: false, force_nonempty_content: true } by default so normal chat output stays in the visible answer instead of exposing reasoning text.

Use Ultra for the highest-capability NVIDIA default. Keep Super selected when you want the smaller Nemotron 3 option, or choose one of the third-party models hosted in NVIDIA's catalog when their context, latency, or behavior fits better.

Bundled fallback catalog

The bundled rows provide known chat metadata and an offline fallback. Deprecated compatibility rows keep existing exact model references recognizable but stay out of model pickers.

Model ref	Name	Context	Max output
nvidia/nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b	Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B	1,048,576	8,192
nvidia/nvidia/nemotron-3.5-lightning-30b-a3b	Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B	1,048,576	16,384
nvidia/nvidia/nemotron-3-super-120b-a12b	Nemotron 3 Super 120B	1,000,000	8,192
nvidia/z-ai/glm-5.2	GLM 5.2	202,752	8,192
nvidia/moonshotai/kimi-k2.6	Kimi K2.6	262,144	65,536
nvidia/minimaxai/minimax-m3	Minimax M3	196,608	8,192
nvidia/deepseek-ai/deepseek-v4-pro	DeepSeek V4 Pro	262,144	16,384

The full compatibility catalog also retains these shipped refs for existing configurations and migration: nvidia/qwen/qwen3.5-397b-a17b, nvidia/moonshotai/kimi-k2.5, nvidia/z-ai/glm-5.1, nvidia/z-ai/glm5, and nvidia/minimaxai/minimax-m2.7. These references stay hidden from bundled and offline model pickers unless NVIDIA republishes them in its inference inventory. NVIDIA has retired the Qwen endpoint, so requests using its model reference no longer work. Migrate existing Qwen configurations to an active model.

Advanced configuration

The provider auto-enables when the `NVIDIA_API_KEY` environment variable is set or a key was stored during onboarding. No explicit provider config is required beyond the key. OpenClaw uses NVIDIA's inference inventory for availability and its featured feed for ranking. Exact bundled metadata preserves reasoning and image capabilities omitted by the featured feed. Deprecated exact-reference compatibility rows stay hidden from the offline fallback; fresh inventory can restore models that NVIDIA has republished. Costs default to `0` in source since NVIDIA currently offers free API access for the listed models. OpenClaw talks to NVIDIA with the `openai-completions` adapter against the standard `/v1` chat completions route. Any OpenAI-compatible tooling should work out of the box with the NVIDIA base URL. NVIDIA's Ultra sample request uses `chat_template_kwargs.enable_thinking` and `reasoning_budget` for reasoning output. OpenClaw's bundled Ultra row disables template thinking by default for normal chat use. If you need to opt into NVIDIA reasoning output or force other NVIDIA-specific request fields, set per-model params and keep provider-specific overrides scoped to the NVIDIA model:

```json5
{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      models: {
        "nvidia/nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b": {
          params: {
            chat_template_kwargs: { enable_thinking: true },
            extra_body: { reasoning_budget: 16384 },
          },
        },
      },
    },
  },
}
```

`params.chat_template_kwargs` merges into any `chat_template_kwargs`
already on the request instead of replacing the whole object.
`params.extra_body` is the final OpenAI-compatible request-body override
and overwrites colliding payload keys, so use it only for fields NVIDIA
documents for the selected endpoint.

Some NVIDIA-hosted custom models can take longer than the default ~120s model idle watchdog before they emit a first response chunk. For custom NVIDIA provider entries, raise the provider timeout instead of the whole agent runtime timeout; `timeoutSeconds` covers provider HTTP requests and raises the idle/stream watchdog ceiling for that provider:

```json5
{
  models: {
    providers: {
      "custom-integrate-api-nvidia-com": {
        baseUrl: "https://integrate.api.nvidia.com/v1",
        api: "openai-completions",
        apiKey: "NVIDIA_API_KEY",
        timeoutSeconds: 300,
      },
    },
  },
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      models: {
        "custom-integrate-api-nvidia-com/meta/llama-3.1-70b-instruct": {
          params: { thinking: "off" },
        },
      },
    },
  },
}
```

NVIDIA models are currently free to use. Check [build.nvidia.com](https://build.nvidia.com/) for the latest availability and rate-limit details.

Related

Choosing providers, model refs, and failover behavior. Full config reference for agents, models, and providers.